`ls -lF` (--classify) symlink target indicator missing

[joknarf]

Test done with uutils commit: 12485f2
under ubuntu26 x86_64 beta / alma10 x86_64
comparing GNU ls coreutils: 9.7-3ubuntu2 / coreutils-9.5-6.el10.x86_64

Output incompatibility with gnu ls on long-format display for symlink indicators, missing target file type indicator useful information, impacted commands:

• ls -lF
• ls -l --classify
• ls -l --indicator-style=classify
• ls -l --indicator-style=file-type

uutils does not give target indicator and gives @ indicator on link filename:

 • ls -lF mylink*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 5 Nov 22 08:33 mylinktodir@ -> mydir
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 9 Nov 22 08:31 mylinktoexe@ -> myexec.sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Nov 22 08:34 mylinktofile@ -> myfile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Nov 22 08:47 mylinktopipe@ -> mypipe
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Mar 29 10:42 mylinktosock@ -> mysock

gnu output compared:

 • gnuls -lF mylink*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 5 Nov 22 09:33 mylinktodir -> mydir/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 9 Nov 22 09:31 mylinktoexe -> myexec.sh*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Nov 22 09:34 mylinktofile -> myfile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Nov 22 09:47 mylinktopipe -> mypipe|
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Mar 29 10:42 mylinktosock -> mysock=

[joknarf]

Implementation available here: https://github.com/joknarf/coreutils/tree/classify_target
if ok, I can open a Pull Request.
https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/compare/main...joknarf:coreutils:classify_target?expand=1

[Alonely0]

Hi, welcome to uutils! Thank you lots for catching this, we really welcome your contribution :)

I probably won't have the time to deep-dive into this for a couple of weeks, but there have been a lot of commits related to ls recently. Could you please try to reproduce this on commit 1b4f47d, the one before I started messing with it, and get back to me? If the issue is not there, please try to use git-bisect to examine all related commits up to the current main branch HEAD. If this is a recent regression, I'd like to find the root cause.

I'd be glad to review your PR if you submit it, although adding a test would be appreciated. Given you're not familiar with our test suite, try to replicate what's already on the ls tests, and feel free to ask us anything :)

PD: can you make my life easier by attaching a shell script that generates the test environment to reproduce this? Thank you in advance.

[joknarf]

same output with coreutils 0.7.0 commit 1b4f47d: indicators on long format symlink target missing (colors are ok on symlink targets with --color)

shell script to reproduce environment:

mkdir testdir
cd testdir
touch myfile
mkfifo mypipe
mkdir mydir
touch myexec
chmod +x myexec
nc -Ul mysock & sleep 1; kill $! #create unix sock file
ln -s mydir mylinktodir
ln -s myfile mylinktofile
ln -s mypipe mylinktopipe
ln -s myexec mylinktoexec
ln -s mysock mylinktosock
ls -lF

PR created: #11554